Note on Page: Senator, Alex recommends you may want to consider being a co-sponsor of the video premier this June, it is a fine organization, you are in good Association company being associated with them. Would you like to be a co-sponsor of the video premier with understanding you may not attend? Accept: X Decline: American Association for the Advancement of Science 1333 H STREET, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C 20005 (202) 326-667... CABLE ADDRESS: ADVANCESCI FAX: (202) 371-9849 Directorate for Education & Human Resources Programs March 31, 1993 Writer's Direct Line: 202-326-6630 Writer's FAX: 202-371-9849 Honorable Bob Dole Attn: Alexander Vachon U.S. Senate SH 141 - Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510-1601 (End of Letterhead) Dear Senator Dole: AAAS is directing a five-year, NSF-funded project, Access to Engineering, on recruitment and retention of students and faculty with disabilities in engineering. To expand the outreach of the project, we have produced a 28-minute video on engineers and engineering students with disabilities, filmed on seven campuses, at federal and state agencies and private industry. The video includes persons with a wide range of disabilities and shows use of assistive technology in education and the work site. The video was funded by the NEC Foundation of America and NASA. We would appreciate it if you would agree to be a co-sponsor of the premier of this video, to be held in a Senate room at the beginning of June. Paul Hearn, Executive Director of the Dole Foundation, is working with AAAS to plan the premier and reception and assist us in sending invitations to include broad representation of the disability and engineering education communities, as well as industry. If your schedule permits you to drop by and briefly visit the reception, we would of course be delighted. Thank you very much. Sincerely, Virginia W. Stern Director Project on Science, Technology, and Disability Enclosure: Office Brochure Note on Page: Copies to: PATRON file, Weekly file, Alex Vachon Note on Page: 4/5/93 Advised Virginia Stern, Sen. Dole agreed to be a co-sponsor of the video premier, with understanding he may not be able to attend the event. American Association for the Advancement of Science 1333 H STREET, N.W, WASHING1DN, D.C 20005 (202) 326-6670 CABLE ADDRESS: ADVANCESCI FAX: (202) 371-9849 Direaorare for Education & Human Resources Programs March 31, 1993 Writer's Direct Line: 202-326-6630 Writer's FAX: 202-371-9849 Honorable Bob Dole Attn: Alexander Vachon U.S. Senate SH 141 - Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510-1601 Dear Senator Dole: AAAS is directing a five-year, NSF-funded project, Access to Engineering, on recruitment and retention of students and faculty with disabilities in engineering. To expand the outreach of the project, we have produced a 28-minute video on engineers and engineering students with disabilities, filmed on seven campuses, at federal and state agencies and private industry. The video includes persons with a wide range of disabilities and shows use of assistive technology in education and the work site. The video was funded by the NEC Foundation of America and NASA. We would appreciate it if you would agree to be a co-sponsor of the premier of this video, to be held in a Senate room at the beginning of June. Paul Hearn, Executive Director of the Dole Foundation, is working with AAAS to plan the premier and reception and assist us in sending invitations to include broad representation of the disability and engineering education communities, as well as industry. If your schedule permits you to drop by and briefly visit the reception, we would of course be delighted. Thank you very much. Sincerely, Virginia W. Stern Director Project on Science, Technology, and Disability Enclosure: Office Brochure Open Door By Chris Jones PUTTING ABILITY FIRST (End of Title) "Engineering is primarily an intellectual profession," says AAAS's Virginia Stern, "but this has not transferred over to the idea that students with disabilities could become engineers." On being accepted to Stanford's mechanical engineering program, Peter Axelson wrote to the dean in charge of housing explaining that his wheelchair was 26" wide. The dean assured him that everything would be seen to, but when Axelson arrived at his dorm he found he couldn't get through the bathroom door. Frustrated, he called the dean. How might it look in the newspaper, he asked, that the first undergraduate with a disability to live in campus housing would have to sleep in his van? "The wall was out in three hours," said Axelson, who broke his back in a mountain-climbing accident at age 19. After he made a full assessment of his living quarters, accompanied by the dean, the housing staff, and an occupational therapist, further changes were made. Next, Axelson tackled the obstacles on campus. Finding no "wheelchair parking" signs, he printed his own. He helped make a map of the campus showing access routes and usable doors. When a course he wanted to take was on the second floor in a building without an elevator, he called the scheduling people. They moved the class. "I spent my first semester working out the problems," Axelson told a roomful of engineering deans at the Access to Engineering conference in October. Like the other engineers with disabilities who spoke at the conference, Axelson told his story straightforwardly, without anger or self-pity. He didn't know back in 1977 that he was entitled to anything, but without the necessary accommodations he could not continue his studies. He went on to get a master's and now runs his own design firm, which specializes in equipment for people with disabilities. Fifteen years after Axelson made his presence known at Stanford, the university has a campus-wide office serving the needs of disabled students. It deals routinely with many of the problems he had to work out for himself. Although frequently mentioned in the same breath as women and minorities -- engineering's other underrepresented groups -- people with disabilities have yet to be a focus of engineering schools' recruitment and retention activities. The Access to Engineering project has set out to change this. Begun early last year by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the project is the first to study the barriers to disabled students in engineering. Its October conference, held in Washington, D.C., introduced engineering deans and industry representatives to the project's goals and brought a source of potential engineers to their attention. "The disabled student pool has not been in the thinking of engineering education or industry," says Virginia Stern, director of AAAS's Project on Science, Technology, and Disability, which oversees Access to Engineering. "Engineering is primarily an intellectual profession -- we all know that. Yet, this has not transferred over to the idea that students with disabilities could become engineers." The stories told at the conference by the engineers with disabilities were a "revelation" for the deans, Stern says. In a discussion section, many of the 15 or so deans commended the engineers' determination to continue their education despite the obstacles and admitted that they had been unaware of the difficulties involved. Nihat Bilgutay, associate engineering dean at Drexel, said he had just put in a proposal for an NSF graduate education grant aimed at teh underrepresented groups. He addressed women and minorities because those were the areas he knew. Now, he said, "the third component will have more focus." It is, perhaps, not surprising that the deans were unaware of the problems; quite likely, most of them could not have said how many students with disabilities were attending their engineering college. With no mechanisms in place for tracking these students, they are an overlooked minority. At present, no long-term, reliable information exists on the number of students with disabilities who enter engineering schools, graduate with an engineering degree, and enter the work force. As a first step, the AAAS project is working with the Engineering Manpower Commission, the data-collection arm of the American Association of Engineering Societies, on a pilot survey to gather aggregate information on disabled students currently in 50 engineering schools. AAAS hopes that collecting these data will become a routine part of the commission's annual surveys of engineering schools. The information could indicate points at which these students drop out of the engineering pipeline. AAAS's Stern suspects it happens primarily at the precollege level. "Very few teachers and counselors suggest engineering as a possible career for students with disabilities. There are 'gatekeepers' early on," she says. "It's not that the engineering deans or the admissions offices are saying they can't take students with disabilities, but that the applicants are not there." Larry Scadden of the Electronics Industries Foundation offered an example. Because he is blind, Scadden said, he was told he could waive math and science courses in high school if he wanted to. Conference participants agreed on the need for programs targeted at secondary schools that encourage capable students with disabilities to study engineering. "Even with all the laws," Stern says, "younger students will not think of engineering unless a program introduces them to it, reinforcing the necessity of taking the high school prerequisites." What currently happens in the secondary grades will be the focus of two of the model programs AAAS is setting up at engineering schools. The programs will research a certain area, report on the findings, and disseminate them to all engineering schools. Negotiations are under way with the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin, and Northeastern University. The project is also working cooperatively with New Mexico State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and California State Polytechnic University-Pomona. Several of these universities have well-established campus-wide programs for students with disabilities. The University of Illinois, for example, has a dorm for those needing extra help with their care and offers a variety of sports for people with disabilities. Like many universities, it provides assistive technologies, such as Kurzweil reading machines, which scan printed text and emit it as a spoken language, and computers with special features such as braille keyboards. Other universities have begun addressing problems specific to engineering. New Mexico State has started an outreach program to educate special education teachers, high school counselors, and rehabilitation center staff about promoting engineering careers to people with disabilities. It will also encourage engineering companies to hire high school students during the summer to give them exposure to the field. With the same goal in mind, Northeastern University's Young Scholars program includes one or two students with disabilities each year. Improving the engineering faculty's awareness is a concern at Cal Poly-Pomona. Staff from the Disabled Student Services Office make presentations to departments and sit in on some of the weekly departmental meetings. Seminars to increase the faculty's awareness of non-traditional students stress the importance of building a sense of community that is independent of the services office. Chris Jones is an assistant editor of ASEE PRISM. Project on Science, Technology, and Disability (End of Title) The Project can Help if You Are: A student with a disability interested in science or engineering and want to meet a role model. A counselor discussing college and career plans with a student with a disability and want to know the experiences of people with disabilities in various fields of science. A student or a family member of a student with a disability and need suggestions on how best to work with a college to obtain physical access and support from faculty. A professor, teacher, or school administrator with a student with a disability in a laboratory course and need technical assistance on adaptations and new technology. A mid-career scientist or engineer who is newly disabled and need assistance in identifying accommodations to continue your career. A director of an informal science program in the community and want to know ways to recruit and include youth with disabilities in your program. A meeting-planner or staff member of a science, engineering or educational organization and wish to make your meetings accessible to all, including participants with disabilities. A student or working scientist with a disability and want to know your legal rights to accessible education and employment. Building or renovating a community, academic, or industrial facility and need information on designing barrier-free space. Developing curriculum materials for science and mathematics classes and want to ensure that they can be used for all students, including those with disabilities. About AAAS: Founded in 1848, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a private, non-profit federation of scientific and engineering societies with approximately 300 affiliates around the world. There are some 136,000 individual members who are scientists, engineers, science educators, policy-makers and lay persons interested in science and technology. AAAS promotes understanding of the sciences within the public and private sectors. The AAAS Project on Science, Technology and Disability was initiated in 1975. For More Information, Contact: American Association for the Advancement of Science Directorate for Education and Human Resources Programs Project on Science, Technology and Disability 1333 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 202/326-6630 (voice/TDD) Virginia W. Stern, Director Laureen Summers, Program Associate Beth Goodrich, Project Assistant Project on Science, Technology and Disability The AAAS Project on Science, Technology and Disability was founded in 1975 to improve the entry and advancement of people with disabilities in science, mathematics and engineering. The project is primarily an information center, linking people with disabilities, their families, professors, teachers and counselors with disabled scientists, mathematicians and engineers who can share their coping strategies in education and career advancement in technical fields. AAAS experience is strongest with individuals with disabilities who have a bachelor's degree in a technical field or who are planning to pursue college studies at least to a bachelor level. AAAS is interested in helping all students from pre-school through post-doctorate, particularly to ensure that pre-college students receive the mathematics and science preparation that allows them options in choosing a career. AAAS is concerned with scientists and engineers who become disabled in mid-career, assisting them in finding accommodations that will allow them to continue in their chosen professions. Project Components Include: A Resource Group of over 1,000 scientists and engineers with disabilities who are available for consultation in areas of technical expertise and career choices. A Directory of Resource Group members is available from AAAS. A project to facilitate the pursuit of engineering degrees by students with disabilities. The project gathers data on how many people with disabilities are enrolled in engineering programs across the country and what support systems are needed or already available to assist these individuals. The project also helps create model programs in six schools offering degrees in engineering. Development of science- and math-based programs as an extension of the activities of community-based groups through the AAAS Linkages Project. Current linkages include: -work with the parents' organization of the A.G. Bell Association for the Deaf to encourage science activities for youth with hearing impairments; -recruitment of volunteers for Recording for the Blind in order to record more math and science texts for students who are print impaired; -cooperative projects with organizations in several U.S. cities to include a science-math component in programs for minority youth with disabilities. Technical assistance and booklets to assist organziations in making professional meetings and workshops barrier free and accessible to all. Publications addressing the needs and accomplishments of people with disabilities in education and professional careers in the sciences. Resource information on policy issues, assistive technology for classrooms and labs, accessibility, out-of-school programs in science and pre-college and post-secondary education in science and engineering. A Coalition on Technology and Disability with other national non-governmental groups to keep current on the latest developments in technology for people with disabilities and the legislation assuring access to technology. A project for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to recruit and integrate young people with physical disabilities into youth programs at NASA installations, and the development of brochures highlighting the experiences of NASA employees with disabilities. Cooperative efforts with the Engineering Manpower Commission, the American Statistical Association, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Bureau of the Census to develop new methodologies on the demography of people with disabilities. A consortium of scientific and engineering societies addressing special-interest groups on technology for people with disabilities, services to members with disabilities and dissemination of information through society journals.